BERLIN, March 29, 2013 (AFP) - German rider Stefan Schumacher, who has served a two-year doping ban, has admitted to regularly knocking back a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs, likening it to eating pasta after training.

Schumacher was caught in October 2008 when a sample taken during that July's Tour de France was shown to have contained CERA, a variant of the banned blood-booster erythropoeitin (EPO). He also tested positive at the Beijing Olympics.

Drug-taking, he said, was par for the course on his former team.

"I took EPO, growth hormones and corticoids (steroids)," the former Gerolsteiner rider told Der Speigel in an interview that will be published in full on Sunday. "I was put into a system. I'm not proud of it but that's the way it was. Doping became an integral part of the daily routine, like a plate of pasta after training."

The admission of his doping history was a first for Schumacher, who now races for the Danish team Christina Watches-Onfone, and comes in the wake of the confession by former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong that he cheated his way to the top. A number of other top cyclists, notably from the Dutch former Rabobank team, have admitted to regularly doping during their careers.